


A Figment of Imagination

by prettybirdy979



Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: (sorta) - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Gen, Precognition
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-03
Updated: 2016-03-03
Packaged: 2018-05-24 11:46:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6152677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prettybirdy979/pseuds/prettybirdy979
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's nothing. It's his imagination, it's his experience voiced, it's <i>nothing</i>.</p><p>It's a voice in the back of his head that seems to know the future and is always right. It's the dreams at night of people and places he's never seen that seem to always come true. It's <i>something</i>.</p><p>But Matt's always been good at lying to himself (does it count as lying to others if you don't admit the truth to yourself?).</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Figment of Imagination

**Author's Note:**

  * For [psyche_girl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/psyche_girl/gifts).



> So [this](http://archiveofourown.org/comments/53608417) comment was left on one of my works and well, I got inspired. Not betaed and I may one day write more.

In the scheme of things, it’s barely worth a mention. Amongst Matt’s many abilities - ‘gifted’ and taught - it’s almost invisible, something easily written off as a product of skill, experience and the usually unknowable things his heightened senses allow him to pick up on. No one observing him, not even Stick, has ever picked up on it and Matt himself is half convinced it doesn’t exist. That it’s just a figment of his imagination, trying to process a world through senses no human was meant to possess.

But then during a fight, when the voice that always haunts the back of his mind whispers his opponent's next move, Matt doesn’t have it in him to ignore it. He’ll dodge even as his senses scream that he should press his advantage and therefore avoid the punch he never sensed coming. 

It’s not just in fights. Matt always knows if the witness will say something that’ll derail his entire case if he asks the question already forming in his mind. He doesn’t have to track Foggy’s arrival to his office; he’s always able to look up just as Foggy enters.

It might be a figment of his imagination, but it’s a damned useful one.

The dreams on the other hand, are not.

******** 

The voice - a sense really, of knowing and surety, that manifests as a voice - starts from the moment Matt wakes in the hospital, whispering in his head that Dad is about to hug him. But confused and terrified, Matt doesn’t notice until long after he’s starting to realise his senses are so much stronger than they were before. 

The dreams, however, don’t start for months and are nowhere as subtle as the voice.

Matt wakes up screaming, Dad’s arms around him. ‘Matty! Matty! It’s okay! I’m here, Matty you’re safe, you’re with me. I’ll keep you safe.’

‘Dad?’ Matt moves his hands to Dad’s face, something in him settling when he doesn’t feel the blood he saw on his father’s face - the memory of which is already starting to fade in favour of the feel of it under his fingers no matter how Matt struggles to hold onto it. Dad’s breath heats his palms and his eyelashes brush Matt’s fingertips as he blinks. Matt drops his hands to Dad’s back, clinging to him tightly so he can feel Dad’s chest rising against his and the warmth of his living body. ‘You’re alive,’ he says.

‘Course I am buddy,’ Dad says, clinging to Matt as tightly as Matt’s clinging to him. 

‘You died,’ Matt accuses, something tightening around him and making breathing hard. ‘I saw your face and the blood-’

Dad sighs and buries a hand in Matt’s hair. ‘I’m not going to die Matt. It was just a dream. Besides,’ he adds in a silly voice, pulling back a touch, ‘haven’t you heard? Dads live forever.’

Matt laughs at the voice but can’t manage to shake the coldness in his body. But it’s just a dream, right?

When Matt feels the blood under his fingers and Dad’s still warm but no longer breathing body he finds his mind aligning what he feels with the memory of a… of a dream? An image, half faded and full of panic that he vaguely remembers dreaming.

But it must be his imagination. Has to be his imagination.

Please God, let it be his imagination.

********* 

He dreams of Stick for weeks before he comes.

But of course, Matt dreams in images, even now as his memories of what the sky looks like are confused with a distant memory of the sea and he finds himself thinking of people not as the pictures he used to but as voices, scents and the rare feel of their face under his fingers. The dreams of the strange old man are the clearest of his dreams but Matt doesn’t link the grumpy, strong voice with the scruffy looking old man. 

Not until Stick teaches him how to judge age by voice and stride alone. Then Matt wonders, but it’s probably just his imagination.

Stick never lets him touch his face to check his mental image of him against the reality - and against the image of the man in the dream.

‘You don’t need to touch to know,’ he says.

Matt doesn’t snap back that while he might know, it’s nice to have confirmation. He keeps his memories of touching his father’s face - to remember, to check for bleeding, just because he asked and Dad never said no - to himself. Something tells him if he can convince Stick to let him do this, things will turn out amazing and Matt will be happy forever.

He dreams of Stick leaving for far longer than he dreams of him coming. Only some of them are nightmares of a lived memory.

*********

Foggy’s been in his dreams for years.

Matt never told him about his senses because one of the dreams - the most constant after they meet -  is of a long haired man who might be Foggy leaving; marching out of the strange, dark space and leaving a bloody man that looks a little like Jack Murdock. If Matt ever believed these were reality and not dreams, he might say that man could be him. His looks certainly match up what Matt feels of his face. 

But it’s just a dream.

(It doesn’t stop him from not telling Foggy because his dreams might not be real but they’re certainly reflecting some unconscious knowledge. When Foggy does actually storm out, Matt realises the dreams were not warning him about telling Foggy but warning him about  _ not _ telling Foggy.

Matt always has been bad at listening to warnings.)

*********

Dodge the punch, avoid the knife. Spin for power and punch his face. Be pleased with mugger’s broken nose, avoid knife again. Time to disarm, pain on pressure points. Kick knife away, dodge another punch. Deliver half dozen of ow-

_ Sniper _ .  _ Aiming for you _ .

Matt scrambles out of the way as the bullet he _k_ _ nows  _ is coming buries itself in the wall where he was standing. In front of him, the dazed mugger groans as Matt drags him out of the line of fire. 

Now he’s focusing, Matt can smell the gunpowder and hear the clinks of the gun’s metal against the rooftop as the sniper tries to adjust his position. Not an expert obviously; he’ll have no problems taking him down.

_ Firing again _ .

Matt’s moving again, before the feeling has even registered. His early movement gives him the time he needs.

He dodges the bullet. Again.

‘Holy shit,’ the mugger’s victim -  _ Foggy _ \- breathes, and Matt realises he might have something to explain.

*******

‘We said no more lies between us.’

Is it a lie between them if Matt’s been lying to himself all these years? Does lying to yourself also count as lying to someone else?

Foggy’s voice is dark, sad and so like what it was the night he left. ‘Matt, you  _ promised _ .’

‘I did,’ Matt says defeated, as he collapses onto his couch. Foggy at least has taken the chair across from him and doesn’t seem to be leaving yet. It’s a matter of time though. ‘I promised.’

‘You can’t tell me super senses let you dodge  _ bullets _ . That’s… no, how the hell did you dodge bullets?’

Matt shrugs. ‘Do you want the long answer or the short one?’

‘Start short and work your way up.’

This should be fun. ‘I don’t know.’ Matt can hear the anger in Foggy’s heartbeat, the rapid breathing as he takes a deep breath to reply and cuts him off. ‘I. Don’t. Know. It’s… it might be nothing. It might be something. But sometimes I just… know things. Beyond my senses. Just a voice in the back of my head telling me to duck when everything else says rise and it’s  _ never wrong _ .’ 

Foggy opens his mouth to reply then slams it shut. He does it again, and again, and again, as if words have escaped him. Finally he says, ‘Matt, that sounds insane.’

‘I know. Like I said, I don’t know.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ Foggy asks, his voice hurt and breaking.

Matt bites his lip and turns his head away, so Foggy can’t see his eyes. ‘Because I don’t tell myself,’ he manages to say; well aware he has to be truthful now or Foggy might leave. Will leave. ‘It’s not lying if I’m lying to myself?’ he tries to say but it comes out soft and questioning. 

‘Oh Matt,’ Foggy sighs.

_ Don’t attack. He’s going to hug you _ . Matt blinks at the certainty in his mental voice a moment before Foggy all but throws himself across the space. If he’d not had that warning, Matt might have curled into a instinctive, defensive ball, to escape what should have been a well deserved attack. But instead Foggy draws him into a hug. 

‘You really are fucked up,’ he says softly and Matt laughs. 

‘Just a bit.’

There’s a long silence before Foggy pulls back and asks, ‘Any other lies you’re telling yourself that I might need to know?’

_ TELL HIM _ , a voice screams and Matt’s not sure if that’s his little future sensing voice or his own mind. It’s probably his own mind. ‘It’s not just a voice in my head. I… I think sometimes I see the future in dreams.’

‘Holy shit, really?’ There’s no disbelief in Foggy’s voice but Matt flinches anyway. ‘No, sorry. I believe you, come on I have to believe you. You’re a blind vigilante, what’s prophetic dreams on that?’

That gets a short laugh out of Matt. ‘It’s all images though, so I’m not sure. Images… aren’t really my strong suit.’

‘No shit. Okay, processing this.’

_ Get a beer. _ Matt’s rising before the thought finishes occurring to him.

‘How about- wait, where are you going?’

Matt pauses. ‘To get a beer?’

‘...Holy shit okay. Really starting to see it now.’ Foggy pauses then asks, ‘Can you see the prosecution’s arguments or is that too trivial for your superpowers?’

Matt laughs at the very Foggy question and goes to get them beers. 

Maybe this won’t be too bad.


End file.
